Crowdsourcing the Collective: a survey of textiles and mixed media art
Published by browngrotta arts
This forty artist strong publication was released to go with a beautiful exhibition held by browngrotta arts. Within this book, you will discover information on each artist and selected imagery of their work. I see the act of the natural fibre holding a weight within this artist selection. We see many sculptural woven textiles, with meaning sewn into each core spanning the political as well as cultural. A paired back palette in tone and colour seems to be a feature of many of the artists used, creating a marriage visually and linking the artists in a manner of speaking.
Crowdsourcing the Collective is the visual accumulative showcase of how craft and textiles has worked its way into the barrier bound fine art world, which previously seemed impossible.
The publisher browngrotta arts has for over thirty or so years proven to build colections of museum-quality contemporary artworks from the US and abroad. They have succeeded in presenting work of artist who’s main practice reflects the fiber and raising its station to a level it deserves. Cleverly they have translated the artists they work with in a variety of ways, including through publications like this one, as well as their website and exhibitions on site - the whole word has a way now of viewing their art - digitally or in person - we cannot escape it, there is no excuse. Not all of us can tootle off to the US, thus this laced up contemporary collection of artists with an edge can be viewed and read about via this book - one thing I noted was the book has a soft back cover. Does this take away any value, any lack of worth? No, it adds to the books precious value, it has that ‘must protect’ ‘treasure this one’ feel.